O Esquadrão do Terror

One of the first jobs I ever had was with a catering company. Imagine our excitement being hired on for the desert-location filming of MEGAFORCE! Everyone involved with this production seemed quite confident that it was going to become a smash summer hit(*snicker).

Watching the filming at Nevada's dry lakes, it did feel like something monumentous was in the making, but nobody could have imagined just how negative a reaction this movie was going to receive. I almost didn't want to see it, but curiosity got the better of me. Truthfully, I don't think it's nearly as horrible as many have made it out to be, but nobody in their right mind would call it legitimately "good", either. There's enough vehicle stunts, random explosions, and weapons futurismo to keep average 12-year-olds very entertained, and I think that may be exactly what Hal Needham intended for this project.

I still have a box filled with t-shirts, ball-caps, and other promotional crap emblazoned with "DEEDS, NOT WORDS". It may not have the iconic carriage of, say, "MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU", but I'll keep these things for posterity, anyhow...

...and I hope everyone on the set enjoyed the food...

**EDIT, 7/28/23 I watched this again last night, for the first time in nearly 30 years. Amazingly, MEGAFORCE has ripened on the vine. The passing of decades has blessed it with an almost rapturous camp appeal...a big ol' wheel of cheese that entertains for (mostly)all the wrong reasons. I was smiling a mile wide.

Rest in peace, Mr. Needham...looks like you've succeeded despite yourself.

I'll admit there is a lot of cheesey stuff in this movie. But how can you not like it? I like it as much as I did when I first saw it back in the '80s. Movies are for entertianment value, being over cricitcal and not just enjoying it for what it is, is a shame. This movie offers you cool stunts, comedy, in general good fun. So what if the missiles don't hit their intended targets? Or the fact that they fit all of those buggies, motorcycles on 2 C-130s? Heck half the movies today don't get it right 90% of the time. I just hope it will come out on DVD some day.

This movie is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. I was an 11 tomboy when it came out and lapped it up. The story's cheesy, the acting way over the top and Introvision left a lot to be desired as an effect process, but still it was fun. Barry Bostwick was a hottie in this film, which is not how I'd usually describe him. Although I had more of a crush on Michael Beck as Dallas. Even as an adult, I still enjoy the heck out of it as whey filled as it is. This is one film that I'm waiting with baited breath to come out on DVD, hopefully in widescreen so I can enjoy it on my 60" widescreen. Megaforce, in my opinion, followed by The Pirate Movie and The Ice Pirates would be the greatest 80's Cheese Ball movie festival ever.

I remember this film, because its the first film I ever walked out of. And for this-then action film-obsessed 14-year old, for a film to be so utterly bad that he felt his lack of intelligence being insulted, well that was like a 2 year old telling his mother that the Teletubbies were stupid. I remember when I was first getting into movies, and I would keep a log of what films I saw, when I saw em, and what I rated em (I think I used a scale of 1-to-10), I recall this one getting my first ZERO. More recently I am pleased to find that when I ask others about the film that most people have never heard of it. A few months ago I saw it late night on cable and finally saw the film's ending, and I must say that is as that two year old would say, "stupid". Utterly, embarrassingly, mind-boggingly stupid.

It has bad acting, bad stunts, bad sets and I love it. This is right up there with Rocky Horror Picture Show and Plan Nine from Outer Space. I have probably watched this 20 times. The only redeeming value is the line: "Life is a wheel, what goes around comes around." Words to live by.